Three Outboard Cats In Three Days—A Southwest Florida Trifecta

The weather and water conditions that make Southwest Florida the place to be for high-performance powerboat lovers this time of year have arrived. Last weekend was a sparkler. For a recently arrived Northern California transplant/boating writer—I landed here full-time less than a year ago—this place is heaven through April.

A decidedly happy man, 27 Valor catamaran owner Tristan Lyche (center), his friend and landscape business co-owner Taylor Clark and Ricardo Maldonado were all smiles last Friday. Photos by Matt Trulio.

Take last weekend. In just three days thanks to some cool friends and colleagues, I experienced a trio of different outboard-engine-powered sport catamarans in low-humidity, 70- to 80-degree perfection.

Here’s how it went down.

Valor Friday
The most interesting days on the water start as one thing and evolve into another. I came to Manatee Marine Unlimited in Palmetto to experience the new 27 Valor Widebody catamaran. But the plan pleasantly morphed into a three-cat lunch-run to The Gateway at the inner reaches of Tampa Bay.

The fleet included Blake and Brock Gratton’s 2025 model-year 38 Doug Wright catamaran built out by Manatee Marine, the second 38 Valor cat completed by company co-owner Julian Maldonado and his crew, and the new 27 Valor Widebody model.

The 27-footer is the property of Tristan Lyche, the 23-year-old founder and co-owner of Boost Landscaping, a landscape construction and excavation business based in Tahoe City, Calif. With the exception of road trips as far east at the Lake of the Ozarks—at least that’s the plan for now—the cat will live at Lake Tahoe.

Without question, a 27-foot, twin Mercury Racing 500R outboard-powered catamaran is a lot of boat, especially for a first-time cat owner. Despite that he has owned a 35-foot Nordic Flame V-bottom with a pair of 1,050-hp engines from Teague Custom Marine for years, Lyche said he knows it will take time to learn the cat and he plans to approach it carefully.

As a finished product, the 38 Valor catamaran is as beautiful and well appointed as its cockpit is spacious.

That’s why Lyche and his best friend/business partner, Taylor Clark, and their buddy, Mason McClain, are spending this entire month in Southwest Florida and the Keys. He is here to learn the boat. His timing is good as landscape construction freezes this time of year in the Sierra-Nevada mountains.

Lyche discovered the 27-footer on Manatee Marine’s Instagram page.

“I wanted a cat but told myself I wasn’t buying anything without 500Rs,” he explained. “I am blown away. The way this thing runs is incredible.

“The hardware, the price-point and everything about the Valor are top-notch,” he continued. “I would have been dumb not to buy it. I plan to do all the West Coast runs next year—I really want to do the Catalina Fun Run—and LOTO.”

Blake and Brock Gratton brought their friend, Kyle Sylvestra, along for the Friday lunch run on their 38-foot Doug Wright catamaran built out by Manatee Marine Unlimited.

Though I had planned to run with Ricardo Maldonado in the 27 Valor, I didn’t get the chance. Despite that Lyche and his friends will be here all month and plan to finish their Florida adventure at the December 4-6 Toys Tour event, every minute of seat-time they can get with Ricardo, Julian or their father, Ricky Maldonado, is valuable.

My ride for the day was the 38 Valor, and it was exceptional. Tampa Bay didn’t dish up anything larger than the odd one-footer—Julian and Ricky Maldonado described the expansive waterway as “the calmest” they’d ever seen it—but the 38-footer was a beast. It felt planted at 120 mph. The boat turned so precisely at that speed that I literally fell out of my seat (big laughs on that one, for the record) when we did it.

The forward-most four seats in the expansive cockpit are wind-free. The back four? Not so much, but that’s a common issue with rear-bench seating in most sport cats.

None of that was unexpected as I had ridden in the somewhat raw—the “graphics” were primer and the boat had just two temporary bucket seats—38 Valor prototype with Julian Maldonado earlier this year. But this was completed hull No. 2, and with its Ray Brasher paintjob and Prestige interior the finished product was beautiful.

The Friday crew was all grins.

Fountain Saturday
My first impression of a Fountain 34 Thundercat during the Miami International Boat Show in 2018 at Virginia Key wasn’t good. The 34-footer rode poorly in light chop and felt flimsy. It was not on par with the MTI 340X or the Wright Performance 360, then the stars of the sport catamaran realm.

From running a 34-foot catamaran to a 70-foot yacht, Simon Williams and Dee Babcock have their boating act together.

But by the time I experienced the boat seven months later during the Speed On The Water Mercury Racing 400R Sport Catamaran Roundup at the Lake of the Ozarks, it was noticeably better. Not great, but better.

Until Saturday, I hadn’t ridden in one since. Yet what a different six years and a lot of hard work can make. Former Fountain Powerboats chief operating officer Jeff Harris and longtime consultant Billy Moore spent significant time revamping the 34 Thundercat from the bottom up. The result is a very solid, attractive and nicely appointed member of the sport cat breed—and one that can hold its own with any like-sized model in the category.

“The 34 Thundercat is excellent in so many ways,” Moore said. “We made the running surface a bit longer when the 450R outboards came out, and Jeff made some changes in it later.”

Added Harris, “The hull bottom angles were straightened and corrected, the tunnel top was trued and the transom notch was filled in. We also removed the large ‘dent’ on the starboard side deck area.”

Saturday’s 34 Thundercat experience came courtesy of Simon Williams, a friend and entrepreneur who owns Fountain dealer Cortez Cove Marina, Shore Thing Storage and GoGPS, and also backs several offshore racing teams. Williams and his fiancé, Dee Babcock, invited me and our mutual friend, Alana Theis, for a lunch outing from Riviera Dunes to Tiki Docks Skyway in St. Petersburg.

The face of pure joy—Alana Theis enjoyed her first 100-plus-mph boat ride last Saturday.

Theis had never been on a fast boat, much less on one running north of 100 mph.

“You will either love it or hate it,” Williams explained as we idled away from Riviera Dunes.

Put Theis in the former group—she loved it.

“I’ve never done anything like this,” she said. “It’s so smooth. I didn’t expect this at all.”

Credit much of the smooth ride to Williams, who knows what he’s doing at the helm of a an outboard-powered catamaran. Credit some of it to the glass-flat to light-ripple conditions that prevailed throughout the day.

But give most of the credit to the latest iteration of the 34-foot looker itself. Based on where it started to where it is now, the boat deserves a thunderous round of applause.

Williams’ Fountain 34 Thunder Cat currently is for sale as he has another one coming.

Skater Sunday
By the time Sunday rolled around, I was ready for a change. Enough of these new-fangled outboard cats, I told myself as I drove back from Palmetto that morning to my home in Cape Coral. I needed something that—like me—was a little more vintage.

Built in 2000, Tim and Cyndee Hill’s Skater 32B catamaran powered by the first generation of Mercury Racing 400R outboards filled the bill. It was far from the first time I’ve ridden in the 32-footer owned by the Fort Myers Offshore power-couple. Yet it was the best so far.

Tim and Cyndee Hill have come a long way fine-turning their vintage 32-foot Skater catamaran.

The Hills have been dialing in their coveted Skater since they bought it almost three years ago. Their journey hasn’t been without a pot-hole or two, most recently a broken propeller shaft on the cat’s port outboard during the Rock The River Cincinnati Fun Run in August. The Hills had Manatee Marine handle the prop-shaft replacement, as well as track down and repair an oil leak coming from one of the in-line six-cylinder engines.

“I couldn’t be happier with the work Julian and the Manatee team did on the boat,” Tim Hill said. “The entire experience was excellent.”

The couple picked up the 32-footer Friday and hauled it back to their Cape Coral home. They ran it briefly Saturday, but by the time they got it on the water they were running out of sunlight. They called it a day, put the cat back on its lift behind them their home and vowed to hit it again Sunday.

Full disclosure? The Hills are my landlords. Far beyond that, they are members of my close-knit extended family. So they had no trouble with me inviting myself to go with them and complete the weekend trifecta. At least they didn’t say anything.

With the changes they have made, most notably and recently a set of humble, four-blade 30-inch-pitch FS1 propellers from Mercury Marine and outboard height adjustments courtesy of Porta Products mounting brackets, the 25-year-old cat has come alive.

“We’ve tried propellers for Dewald, Hill and Hering,” Hill explained. “Nothing has worked as well as the FS1s.”

Conditions off Fort Myers Beach didn’t permit much more than an 85-mph blast, but the cat’s low-speed and mid-range acceleration is much improved. The boat is on plane at 15 mph with zero bow-rise and it’s spunky enough to push you back in your seat till at least 85 mph.

The 32B cat dressed up the docks late yesterday afternoon at the delightful Slipaway location.

And it’s a Skater with deep freeboard, tall sponsons and a conservative 48-inch tunnel. Those elements plus stout construction combine to make 85 mph feel comfortable in the slop off Fort Myers Beach.

By way of comparison neither of the other two outboard-powered cats I experienced last weekend could have comfortably reached that speed. To be fair way, those are the kind of conditions on which Skater catamarans made their reputation for outstanding rough-water performance.

On the way home, we stopped at Slipaway Food Truck Park And Marina for refreshments. (Don’t let the name put you off, the waterfront haunt is outstanding on every level.) It was a perfect finish to the weekend trifecta.

“This was such a great day,” said Cyndee Hill with an ear-to-ear grin. “So much fun.”

Despite that she was just one-third of the weekend correct, I had to agree.